Fifa: Valcke and Al-Khelaïfi tried in a TV rights case

This is the culmination of one of the many investigations into world football: Jérôme Valcke, ex-number 2 of Fifa, and Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, boss of beIN Media and PSG, appear since Monday in Switzerland in A TV rights case. Accompanied by their lawyers, the two leaders arrived early in the morning at the Federal Court of Bellinzona, for one of the first hearings intended to settle five years of scandals around Fifa.

After consideration of a procedural matter, the proceedings are to resume at 11:30 GMT.

Long-awaited, their trial opens under a double threat: the health crisis, which already derailed a corruption file around the 2006 World Cup in the spring, and the investigation for collusion between the Swiss prosecution and Fifa, which has since undermined its credibility.

Main defendant, Frenchman Jérôme Valcke, right-hand man until 2015 of ousted FIFA president Sepp Blatter, has to explain himself in two separate cases of television rights and faces five years in prison.

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Swiss justice rejects the challenge of Nasser Al-Khelaïfi

Justice accuses him of having favored the transfer to the Qatari giant beIN Media of the rights in the Middle East and North Africa of the 2026 and 2030 World Cups, in exchange for the “exclusive use” of a villa in Sardinia, paid 5 million euros by Nasser Al-Khelaïfi.

Judicial pirouette

Long conducted for "private corruption", the investigation had to drop this charge because of an "amicable agreement" in January between Fifa and Mr. Al-Khelaïfi, which led the body to withdraw its complaint .

The prosecution has therefore opted for the field of "unfair management": it now accuses Mr. Valcke of having "kept for him" advantages that should have gone to Fifa - even if it would be bribes - de-vin - and to Mr. Al-Khelaïfi for having "incited" him to do so.

The two men dispute these charges, according to their defense.

In addition, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi's lawyers believe that "most of the case does not concern (their) client".

"The secondary accusation, very recently conceived by the prosecution to try to save his case, is obviously artificial", say Grégoire Mangeat, Marc Bonnant and Fanny Margairaz, judging the process "to the limit of disloyalty".

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In the second case, Jérôme Valcke will have to answer for "repeated passive corruption", "aggravated unfair management" and "false titles", alongside the Greek businessman Dinos Deris, 63 years old.

Citing a medical reason, the latter was absent Monday, and his case could be severed from the component which concerns Mr. Al-Khelaïfi, who also risks 5 years in prison.

Mr. Valcke would have this time received 1.25 million euros, in three payments from Liechtenstein to his company Sportunited, to help obtain the media rights of several World Cups in Greece and Italy.

Pressure on Swiss justice

Complainant in these two cases, Fifa claims “between 1.4 and 2.3 million euros” to Jérôme Valcke for having benefited for 18 months from the “Villa Bianca”, a luxurious building on the Sardinian Emerald Coast.

She is also asking for 1.25 million euros from her former secretary general and Dinos Deris.

But the accusation is weakened by the suspicions of collusion born from three secret meetings in 2016 and 2017 between the boss of Fifa, Gianni Infantino, and the former head of the Swiss prosecution, Michael Lauber, which earned the two men an investigation opened this summer for "obstructing criminal proceedings".

If the hearing comes to an end, it will be the first judgment pronounced in Switzerland, the headquarters of most international sports organizations, on the twenty or so investigations opened for five years around Fifa.

In April, the Federal Criminal Court was forced to close a trial started in March on suspicion of corruption in the attribution of the 2006 World Cup to Germany: first postponed due to the Covid-19, this case involving the former "Kaiser" of football Frank Beckenbauer has been overtaken by prescription.

After this "snub", the hearing in Bellinzona is "a unique opportunity" to show that Swiss justice "knows how to be as effective" as that of the United States, which has already pronounced "29 convictions" in Fifa files, underlined Me Saverio Lembo, the lawyer of the instance.

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